Beyond folklore clichés and Cold War discourse, below the radar of the tastemaking music press, DIY, alternative, independent music scenes are thriving in Central and Eastern Europe: from electronics and noise to ironic-deconstructive takes on traditional and marginalized local musical styles like Manele and Chalga.

The blog Easterndaze (easterndaze.net) explores and maps local DIY scenes operating in a digital realm, introduces the creative personalities and collectives behind them and provides context. The concert & film screening series Easterndaze × Berlin: DIY Music Topographies, curated by Lucia Udvardyová and produced by Natalie Gravenor, presents music collectives from Budapest, Bucharest, Prague and Warsaw and pairs each of them with groups from Berlin’s diverse DIY scenes. The concert series takes place at silent green Kulturquartier, a new cultural space situated in the former crematorium Wedding. The collectives will also exhibit artefacts of their unique visual identities such as flyers, covers and video works. Documentary films linked to the musical acts and exploring DIY music culture in various Eastern European cities and Berlin are screening at Lichtblick Cinema. Easterndaze × Berlin brings together the most interesting and idiosyncratic collectives and cultural activists from Central /Eastern Europe and Berlin, such as Future Nuggets (Bucharest), Christoph de Babalon (Berlin), WIDT (Warsaw), Farbwechsel (Budapest), KETEV (Berlin), Praxis (Berlin) and many others. The festival is a continuation of Easterndaze: DIY Music Topographies, an exhibition and event series with alternative and underground musicmakers organized for the OFF Biennale Budapest in 2015.

Easterndaze × Berlin is funded by Musicboard Berlin and the German-Czech Future Fund and supported by the EUNIC Network of European Cultural Institutes in Berlin, the Romanian Cultural Institute, the Czech Center Berlin and Collegium Hungaricum Berlin.